The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford — Volume 4 eBook

(424) Walpole had printed fifty copies of"The Mysterious
Mother” at Strawberry Hill as early as the year
1765; but a surreptitious edition of it being announced
in 1781, he consented to Dodsley’s publishing
a genuine one.-E.

(425) In his reply to this letter, of the 7th of May,
the worthy antiquary says-"I congratulate the little
Parisian dog, that he has fallen into the hands of
so humane a master. I have a little diminutive
dog, Busy, full as great a favourite, and never out
of my lap: I have already, in case of an accident,
ensured it a refuge from starvation and ill-usage.
It is the least we can do for poor harmless, shiftless,
pampered animals that have amused us, and we have
spoilt.” A brother antiquary, on reading
this passage, exclaimed, “How could Mr. Cole
ever get through the transcript of a Bishop’s
Registry, or a Chartulary, with Busy never out of
his lap!"-E.

I supped With your Countess on Friday at Lord Frederick
Campbell’s, where I heard of the relief of Gibraltar
by Darby. The Spanish fleet kept close in Cadiz:
however, he lifted up his leg, and just squirted contempt
on them. As he is disembarrassed of his transports,
I suppose their ships will scramble on shore rather
than fight. Well, I shall be perfectly content
with our fleet coming back in a whole skin; it will
be enough to have outquixoted Don Quixote’s
own nation. As I knew, your Countess would write
the next day, I waited till she was gone out of town
and would not have much to tell you—­not
that I have either; and it is giving myself an air
to pretend to know more at Twickenham than she can
at Henley. Though it is a bitter northeast, I
came hither to-day to look at my lilacs, though `a
la glace; and to get from pharaoh, for which there
is a rage. I doted on it above thirty years
ago; but it is not decent to sit up all night now
with boys and girls. My nephew, Lord Cholmondeley,
the banker `a la mode, has been demolished.
He and his associate, Sir Willoughby Aston, went early
t’other night to Brookcs’s, before Charles
Fox and Fitzpatrick, who keep a bank there, were come;
but they soon arrived, attacked their rivals, broke
their bank, and won above four thousand pounds.
“There,” said Fox, “so should all
usurpers be served!” He did still better; for
he sent for his tradesmen, and paid as far as the
money would go. In the mornings he continues
his war on Lord North, but cannot break that bank.
The court has carried a secret committee for India
affairs, and it is supposed that Rumbold is to be the
sacrifice; but as he is near as rich as Lord Clive,
I conclude he will escape by the same golden key.